The geography of innovation and technology news - An empirical study of the German news media

Burcu Ozgun and Tom Broekel ()

No 2110, Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) from Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography

Abstract: Variations in the frequency and tone of news media are the focus of a growing literature. However, to date, empirical investigations have primarily confirmed the existence of such differences at the country level. This paper extends those insights to the subnational level. We provide theoretical arguments and empirical support for systematic regional variations in the frequency and sentiments of news related to innovation and new technologies. These variations reflect regional socio-economic structures. We find that the average newspaper circulating in urban areas features more news on innovation and new technologies than media in more rural areas. Similar endings hold for locations in East Germany and to a certain degree for regions with low unemployment. The sentiments of innovation and new technology news are negatively associated to the unemployment rate, and they tend to be lower in regional newspapers than in national ones. Overall, our results suggest a strong link between the regional socioeconomic conditions and how newspapers circulating in these places report on innovation and new technologies.

Keywords: innovation; technology; news media; sentiment analysis; topic modeling (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L82 O33 R12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-03, Revised 2021-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse, nep-cul, nep-eur, nep-geo, nep-ino, nep-sbm and nep-ure
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Journal Article: The geography of innovation and technology news - An empirical study of the German news media (2021)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:egu:wpaper:2110

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